BJP must come clean on snooping: Tewari

The war of words over the alleged snooping on a young woman by Gujarat Police flared up again Monday, with Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari demanding that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) come "clean on this".

The BJP claimed the snooping was the handiwork of the "dirty tricks department" of the Congress.

"BJP claims the lady was protected at her father's behest - was the threat assessed? Why were PSOs (personnel security officers) not provided? Why court ignominy of being the Stalking Sahebzada," Tewari said in a comment on Twitter Monday morning.

"This is a breach of civilised behaviour. This is not the way a state behaves," Tewari later told reporters. "They (BJP) need to come clean on this and say whether it was an isolated incident..." he said.

Asked about the BJP's claim that the Congress was invading the woman's privacy, Tewari said that "it is a concern for the whole nation".

According to investigative reports on two websites, three key wings of Gujarat Police misused their powers to stalk an unmarried young woman from Bangalore in 2009 under orders from then Gujarat minister of state for home Amit Shah, who reportedly put the woman under surveillance for his "saheb".

BJP leader Ravishankar Prasad said: "The Congress is scared of the popularity of Narendra Modi (the party's prime minister candidate), so their dirty tricks department has become active."

"Has the girl complained? Has the father complained? They are invading the privacy of the lady in question. Their political fortune is declining, this shows the desperation of Congress," Prasad said.

Party leader Sushma Swaraj also described the snooping allegation against Modi as a "dirty trick" by the Congress.

"This is a demonstration of the dirty tricks of the Congress," Sushma Swaraj told reporters here. She said that when the Congress gets frustrated, it resorts to "such things".